The Lost Boys

Not My Only Reason

"Alan," Edgar asked. "Why did you tell her the phone is back there? The phone is over there." He pointed to a spot next to the cash register where their only phone sat.

"So we could have some time to talk while she is looking for the 'phone'." Alan told his brother.

"Well then you better hurry, because the back isn't that big, and she'll be coming back any second," Edgar warned. They stood there in a two second awkward silence before Edgar asked, "So what do you think?"

"About what?" Alan asked. "Alexis? The vampire?"

"Alexis, you dumbass!" Edgar smack talked Alan. Alan gave him a look that told him that if he wanted to keep it, he would hold his tongue when talking to him. Edgar looked down, "Sorry Alan, kinda upset right now."

Alan smiled to himself. Even if Edgar acted like head, Alan is still eldest. And power does come with age. Even with a short distance in age, and much resistance from Edgar, Alan was still able to subdue his brother's attitude, even if it was only for a few seconds.

Edgar looked up and glared at his brother, "Why the hell are you smiling? This isn't the time to be smiling! Anyway, what do you think of her?"

Alan turned his smile into his normal scowl-like face and told his brother, "I like her, she's cool." His scowl was breaking into the smile, "And funny."

Edgar gave an annoying glare at Alan, "You wouldn't think that if you were the one who was being made fun of. And stop smiling, it's not funny at all, and I hate it when you smile."

Alan broke into a huge grin, "You are just jealous because you didn't get to make any jokes."

"I most certainly am not!" Edgar raised his voice.

"Shut up Edgar!" Alan hissed. "You're going to attract attention from Alexis."

In all reality, they already had her attention. She knew the phone was in the front of the store all along, she just asked for the phone to make it seem like she didn't know. Then they lied to her and told her it was in the back, what friends. She didn't mind, it was funny to see them argue. Even if some of it was about her. So as she pretended to look through the back for a phone, she listened to them talking.

"Then stop saying untrue things!"Edgar talked back.

"I will as soon as you tell me they are true!" Alan played with his brother. Alexis saw Edgar glare at his brother, not speaking a word. Alan stopped playing when he saw his brother's seriousness and asked him, "What do you think about Alexis, Edgar?"

Alexis intently listened in to hear Edgar's answer; it would be pretty interesting to hear what Edgar thought about her. She was able to detect a small pause from Edgar before he said his answer, which would have been impossible to hear if she wasn't intently listening, "She's okay, I've met nicer vampires though." She rolled her eyes at his statement. As far as she was concerned, the same thing was to him. She actually had met a vampire nicer than him, in the beginning at least. But the pause in before his ridiculous statement got her thinking, was there more than that to his statement? Was it good or bad?

Apparently Alan must have felt the same way about it as Alexis had because she saw him roll his eyes and say, "You're just saying that because you're jealous of the bloodsucker she was with."

Edgar looked very angry at his brother and yelled, "Listen here you bastard, I am not jealous!"

"Shhh!" Alan shushed his brother. "You have probably caught her attention now!"

Alexis took that as her cue to enter and came out of the back room. "Hey, what's going on?" She pretended to not know.

Alan gave a look to his brother, then looked at Alexis and said, "Nothing, just arguing about stuff."

"Well, I was going to come back out soon anyways," She lied. "I couldn't find any phone back there."

Edgar left the room to go into the back as Alan suddenly 'remembered', "Oh, I totally forgot! We moved our phone to the front just last week! I haven't gotten used to it yet, sorry." and apologized.

"Oh it's okay," She told him. She walked over to their phone and dialed her number into the green phone.

It wasn't long after she dialed the number when someone picked up the phone. She heard her mother's frantic voice say, "Alexis? Are you there? Oh god dammit please be there!"

"Hey Mom," Alexis nervously said to her mother.

"Alexis! Where have you been? Where are you? Why are you not home? Are you hurt? Did something bad happen to you? Why would you do this to us? Can you think of anyone but yourself for one second of your day? We have been-"

"Mom? MOM!" Alexis yelled at her mother. "I'm fine, nothing bad has happened."

"Then why are you missing from home? We told you to be home by midnight, and what time is it? 12:05! Why would you disobey us?'

"MOM! I met a friend at the boardwalk today and got too caught up in fun. We tried to get me home, but the storm was too much, and we just stayed over at their shop. Their parents own one here and they thought it would be better if I just stayed here too."

"Well then, let me talk to these so called parents," her mother told her.

"Oh um, sure! Hold on a few seconds," she nervously looked at Alan for help. She whispered to him, "My mom wants to talk to your parents! What do I do?"

Edgar walked in from the back, grabbed the phone from Alexis, and started talking to her mom. "Hello?" he said, his voice just a bit deeper and gravely than his voice already was. Alexis and Alan could barely contain their laughter, but they were somehow able to keep it down. Edgar shot them an annoyed glance before continuing. "Yes, this is the father. Yes, she did meet my child today at the boardwalk. Yes, we did try to bring her home, but the rain was too much, we couldn't see through our windshield, and the wind was too hard to walk home in, so we offered for her to stay the night." He paused, listening to her mother talk. "Yes, yes. We can walk her over tomorrow if you would like." He paused once more. "Yes, perfect time. We'll have her home right then. Thanks, goodbye." And he hung up.

"What did she say?" Alexis eagerly asked.

"She said you could stay," Edgar told her, and she huffed a sigh of relief. "And we have to have you home by 11:30."

Alexis looked confused. "Why 11:30?"

"They had to work earlier that morning or something, they were going to be home by 11:30, and they would prefer it if you would be home before that time."

Alan looked at Edgar with a joking glance, "They would prefer it, or you would?"

"Both," Edgar told them, and walked back to the back room. Alan and Alexis rolled their eyes at him as he left.

"So," Alexis started. "Where am I going to sleep now that we've gotten this far? And you two?"

Alan stood there thinking for a bit, they hadn't thought of this part yet. He thought of a few possibilities… There was a bed… frame, without a mattress. Their parents decided to get a bed frame just in case there were any of those nights just like this one, but they failed to even get as far as getting a mattress for the damn thing. He was about to tell Alexis they would have to all sleep on the floor, when he remembered they had a couch. "I've got it! You can sleep on our couch!"

"You've got a couch?"

"Yup. We also have a bed frame, without a mattress, if you would like to sleep on that instead."

"No thanks, a couch is fine with me," Alexis told him almost without hesitation. "But what about you and Edgar? Where are you two going to sleep?"

"We'll have to sleep on the floor. We've got nothing else, you're lucky I remembered the couch."

She sighed, "Fine, but I don't like how you guys have to sleep on the floor. You sure you've got nothing else?"

He nodded and said, "Yeah, I'm sure. Don't worry, Edgar and I will be fine. We can sleep on the floor no problem."

"Okay then, if you really are serious…"

"Yes I am. Now let's get to bed before you talk us out of it," Alan told her. Alexis followed Alan to some sort of supply closet, where they found a few heavy blankets. They had to search throughout the entire back room in order to find another blanket. Luckily they found a whole stash of them inside a couple boxes underneath the bed frame. Alan took more heavy blankets to cushion their sleep, and then a few more to keep them warm on the stone cold ground. Alexis grabbed one of the heavy ones, and a few of the smaller ones. She was naturally warm, and so she didn't need as many blankets as the Frog brothers did. Plus growing up in Utah, where the snow always bugged her to no end, helped her to grow naturally warmer than the rest of her family and she was no longer wearing three blankets with a coat, just two blankets.

"You know Alan, I haven't seen Edgar since I called my parents. Where is he?" asked Alexis.

He looked around, "I don't know. We haven't been acting our usual since we came home from staking the bloodsucker." They decided to look around the shop around places that they never looked at before, and they eventually found him. He was lying in a relaxed position on the couch, his arms holding his head up, his eyes closed. Alan walked over to his brother and yelled, "Edgar get up! You are not sleeping there!"

"Make me," Edgar grumbled. Then Alan grabbed Edgar's wrists, and yanked them up. Edgar was surprised at the sudden movement of being yanked and almost fell down. Almost, but he was able to stand up on his feet before he did.

"Made you," Alan taunted. "Now you and I are going to sleep on the floor. Alexis is going to have to couch."

Edgar grumbled nonsense, and left to lie on the pile of blankets already on the floor. Alan shook his head and sighed, "Must've really upset him with our jokes. I'll go say sorry, since it was mostly me. You set up your bed however you want to. Get cold, try to grab one of ours, if Edgar will let you."

Alan then left to apologize to his sibling, and left Alexis to set up her bed. She lied down to find the couch wasn't very comfortable. Lumpy in random areas, and where it wasn't lumpy, it was cold and metal-like. It had many holes in the arm and back, and patches all over the cushion. It looked fine from a few feet away, but actually laying down on it made it seem impossible to sleep on. But like this entire night, it was possible. As soon as she arranged her blankets around, and laid down her head, she was soon fast asleep. Something she hardly ever got anymore.

She woke up in the middle of the night, still tired. But something was different, very different. She woke up a bit more and noticed she was not on the lumpy couch in the comic shop owned by the Frog Brothers, but in a real and comfortable bed, but it wasn't her bed. Once she was finally aware of her surroundings, she felt a presence behind her on the bed. It wasn't a bad presence, in fact it was just the opposite, it was a very protective presence. She turned her head and body slightly to look behind her, and she saw a boy on the bed with her. He had short dark hair, and she was just able to see light highlights spiked up in his hair. He looked to be around her age, maybe a year younger. A few seconds after she finished looking over the boy, he woke up. He looked at her very lovingly with light blue eyes that she was also barely able to see. He came a little closer to her, and kissed her, full on the lips. Confused at first, she didn't do anything, but as he kept kissing her, she was kissing him back. They spent some time just kissing, when they stopped, they sort of cuddled together. They got closer and he wrapped his arms around her stomach. She placed her arms around his, and leaned against his chest a little. They cuddled like that until see was finally asleep again. Then she woke up.

It was morning. She couldn't get a very good light source, so she couldn't determine the time. The first thing see did when she woke up was look for that boy, but she was back on the couch again. She must have been dreaming! She slumped back to into her sleeping position, and put her face in between the end of the cushion and arm of the couch. Despite what happened during the previous day, she really wanted it to be real. He had a very protective feeling around her, and the way he held her arms around her made her feel invincible. He felt confident and very happy when he held her. He kissed her with real passion, and not a bunch of short kisses. She just wanted him to be near him again. No, she needed to be near him again. She needed him as much as the Frog Brothers hated vampires. It was turning to be a lot like last night, the way she needed him. She moved her head to look around the back of the shop for a second, but found the Frogs staring down at her. She covered her head with some of the blankets and asked them what they wanted, adding a bit of gruffness to show them she was a little angry.

"Jeez, look who woke up on the wrong side of the couch," Edgar commented on her attitude.

"It's not that, I got perfect sleep last night," she told Edgar.

"Then what is it Alexis?" Alan asked her. "One second I looked at you, and you were perfectly fine, the next second, you looked upset."

"Well, I had a dream last night."

"Oh no, heaven forbid you to ever have a dream," Edgar commented once again.

She took off the blanket off her head for a second so Edgar could see her annoyed glance, "No it is definitely not that" and replaced the blanket atop her head.

"So it was a great dream?" Alan asked again.

"Insanely great," she told him.

"So tell us your dream," and Edgar pulled up a chair and sat on it. "Tell us how it really makes you feel."

She once again shot him an annoyed glance. "No thanks, I'd rather keep this dream to myself."

"Why don't you want to tell us?" Edgar asked her. "Did you do anything stupid or inappropriate at all?"

This time when she took off her blanket, she kept it off and shot another look at Edgar, and saw him smiling triumphantly. "No, I didn't do anything stupid or inappropriate."

"Then what is the reason for not telling us?" Edgar asked her. He was starting to really get on her nerves. Though he had a point, what was her reasoning?

"I just don't want to. It is kind of a personal dream, Edgar," she told him.

"That means you did something you shouldn't have!" Edgar accused. Alexis was just about to blow her top. Why did he have to accuse her of things like that? Of course she kind of did do things she shouldn't have, but why did he have to accuse her of them when he didn't know a thing!

Alan must have sensed this because he pulled Edgar's chair back saying, "C'mon Edgar, you need to go do something productive. Talking to her about this isn't getting you anywhere." Edgar was reluctant to leave at first, but he left when he realized his brother was right. Like he usually is. With a scowl on his face, he stood up and left.

"Thanks Alan," Alexis said. "If Edgar or I had said one more thing I was going to scream."

"Yeah, you could really tell," Alan told her, sitting down on Edgar's now vacant chair.

Alexis sighed, "Does he do this just to piss me off?"

Alan sat there for a second, "Some of it maybe, maybe other times he is just trying to poke fun at you."

"He must like to do it a lot then," Alexis told him.

Alan sighed and stood up, "It's nine o'clock anyway, it's time to get up."

She took off the blankets and got off the lumpy couch. "Oh, how did I sleep on that?"

"I don't know," Alan told her. "Our parents are cheap and lazy, so all they got was this run down thing."

She laughed quietly when Alan called the couch a thing. "By the way, where are your parents?"

"Oh they went home hours before we saved you, about 3 hours before. As soon as they were awake and at least halfway decent enough to drive they left."

"The bastards," Edgar walked back in to talk to them.

"Edgar!" Alan yelled at his brother. "Don't you talk about our parents that way!" Apparently Edgar made the wrong choice.

"How can I when is true?" Edgar asked. "They don't do anything! They never did anything! Ever! It was always you and me!"

"I don't care!" Alan yelled back to Edgar. "You still don't need to talk about them like that!"

Things were getting really heated up with the Frogs, and Alexis wasn't so sure she was mad at Edgar anymore. She was a bit sorrier for him than anything. She had always been in watchful eye from her parents, whether she liked it or not. But Edgar and Alan grew up with parents that didn't care about them. Without knowing what wrong or right was, or having any ground rules. The only thing they learned from them was probably how to walk and talk. The rest was probably learned from school, and what does school teach you anyways? Not the things the teachers thought it did. She was an A student, but most of it was pure luck. She wasn't smart in all the areas they wanted, but she was a great guesser.

She took a risk and cut into their conversation. "Edgar I'm sorry."

Both the siblings looked at her. "What?" Edgar asked.

"I'm sorry I've been getting upset about what you have been saying," Alexis told him. "And, I'm sorry your parents are jerks."

Instead of Edgar leaving the room, Alexis left the back and sat next to the phone and cash register. She sat like the boys usually acted like gruff and angry. She wasn't mad at them, just mad at the fact that she said something. They were probably mad at her for calling their parents jerks, or at least Alan would, but she really was sorry for Edgar and Alan. She knew how Edgar felt, being the younger child. Growing up in the other's shadow, at least a little bit of the time. She didn't like that, so instead of flashing off and doing stupid things, she became friends with her sister instead. It diffused most of the tension between them, but neither was ever in the other's shadow when they always were together. But for them it might be they are close for survival. In order to survive their parents they had to work the shop and get their own food, then on top of that go to school. Their parents didn't care, hers cared WAY too much. She didn't know which one was worse. After sitting there for a couple minutes with no contact from the boys, she started to cry. She did it softly so they wouldn't hear her.

She looked up at the time and saw 9:15. Hardly any time had passed; maybe too much time had passed. Either way she wasn't happy with it, for numerous and unknown reasons. How it was possible, she didn't know; all she knew was that it was the wrong time. Her eyes could no longer produce any tears. With all her crying yesterday, then her crying today, and the multiple almost-in-tears moments drained her eyes dry. Her tear span had shrunk in size since her sister was gone. She cried many times, unable to get the picture out of her head. She finally got over the loneliness of being an only child four months after. Her parents never got over it, now they never would with her acting like she was. Now all she wanted was to leave the home, go wherever she wanted. She would take even the Frog's parents if she were just able to leave that house.

She had no evidence that she was crying, except that her eyes were stinging red. Every time she blinked she could feel all her pains and aches disappear, especially the worst ones. Seems she hasn't gotten over the fact that her sister was gone completely yet. To her it seemed she had plenty of tears that hadn't dried yet. They had finally dried, and she was now free of the guilt and sad feelings inside her. She felt like a new person, all in two days. She couldn't place any fingers on what had happened to her, but she was glad she did it. She no longer had many regrets, only small ones. She no longer was sad, about anything.

Just at that moment Alan and Edgar came in. She took a quick deep breath before facing the boys. "Hey, guys. I'm sorry for acting like that. I just didn't want you guys fighting."

Wearing his usual scowl face Alan nodded to her. "Yeah we understand. Or at least I do. I didn't want you guys fighting either."

Edgar just stood there. He wasn't saying anything, nor did he want to say anything. But as he went over in his small brotherly chat with Alan, he had to. But he never said when he'd do it. So he just stood there waiting for Alan to tell him to speak. This wasn't long after they were talking when he nudged upon by his brother to speak. God he really wasn't looking forward to this…

So… How is it? Good? I hope so. There are definitely my favorite parts, and my not so favorite parts. And lots of parts sounded a lot better in my head, and I could act out a lot better than I could write them. Can you identify someone in this part? I hope so. :) I was really looking forward to this part, and didn't turn out exactly how I planned, but what does?

I have grown confidence in my writing though. During a school I got graded a 5.3 out of 6 on a writing test. That's one and probably is my best score on it ever. All of it was at least 5 except for 2 of them. One of them was organization. I am not an organized person, and that test I was definitely not organized. But what can you do?

I also still have that idea from last part that I really can't decide if I want to do it or not. I would tell you what it is, but 1) It is kind of stupid (Or at least in my mind, like everything else is.) 2) It would ruin the surprise if I do end up doing it. I REALLY want to, but at the same time I really DON'T want to do it. What would you do? I'm going to try and see if my friend can give me advice if you guys won't. I still really wouldn't mind a review by the way. It would definitely help my writing if you would. If you like parts of it, then I would like to know the parts you do. Then vice-versa for parts you don't like. PLEASE? I'll continue whether you do or not, but I would really appreciate them.